Making a 4-in-1 Composite Photo

A way to make maximum use of the single photo that is propagated from MLS sites to other real estate websites is a 4-in-1 composite photo. This used to be more important in our MLS a few years ago. Now all photos you put on our MLS make their way to most major real estate websites. However, I noticed there are still some real estate websites that only manage to get the main photo from the MLS so this is still a useful technique.

Here are the steps to creating a 4-in-one composite photo in Photoshop Elements:

1. Open a blank image 8” x 5” at 72 dpi in landscape mode.


2. Use the line tool to divide the blank image in half vertically and horizontally with a black 3 pixel wide line.


3. Open one image at a time that you want in the composite dragging it to one of the 4 empty quadrants of the blank image.


4. Scale each image to fit exactly in each quadrant.


5. Make sure the layers with the black lines are the top most layer.


6. Flatten the image and save as a JPEG.

As in the example I like to up the front photo in the upper left and have the other images be the strongest images of the most important rooms (kitchen, living room and master bedroom). Now you have one image that gives a feel for the four most important views of the home.